Lunatics are pleased to announce the availability of the v0.43b installer in the Lunatics main download area and mirror sites.
Please take care you use the right installer (32/64 bit) for your system.

Should you have any questions or problems - ask! Post in this thread or open a new one.

New in this installer:
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Added support for Astropulse v7 on all platforms.
Maintenance release v0.43a: Updated all AP GPU applications from r2721 to r2737, addressing a system memory usage problem on tasks with high signal counts.

How to use the installer:
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For the CPU applications, you need to know what your CPU supports. Either check the Boinc startup messages or check with CPU-Z downloadable from http://www.cpuid.com
Tick or untick CPU AP and MB applications as desired.
Tick ATI (OpenCL) AP or MB if/as desired.
Tick NVidia (OpenCL) AP or CUDA MB if/as desired.
Tick Intel (OpenCL) AP or MB if/as desired.
More details further down.

NB We use default values throughout the app_info.xml. If you have previously installed optimised applications and manually edited app_info.xml (e.g. <count> for multithreading GPUs, <flops>, <cmdline> for ATI) you WILL lose those edits on running the installer and have to redo them. You may wish to make a note of them.
You will also lose all other manual edits to app_info.xml such as beta applications.

You are strongly recommended to use a version of BOINC which supports app_config.xml files. These can be used to manage the number of tasks running on each GPU more simply than by editing app_info.xml, and will NOT be removed by re-running this or subsequent installers. If you have previously used an app_config file for Astropulse, you may want to add a similar section for Astropulse_v7.

Known issues - general:
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The AP v7 CPU applications can all run on BOINC 7 installations running in service mode.

Be careful when upgrading if you have already pre-installed optimised AP v7 applications from individual pre-release build packs. Some of these packs deploy version numbers derived from Beta testing, and they are not guaranteed to match the Main project release values. This installer follows the application version numbers and plan classes displayed on http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/apps.php - if yours differ, set NNT and drain your cache before proceeding.

TAKE SPECIAL CARE when upgrading from the stock 7.00 Astropulse CPU application. The intermediate checkpoint files have a non-standard format, and the Lunatics applications can't resume a part-computed task. Either set NNT and wait until the current task(s) have finished - may be a long wait - or abort tasks if they haven't progressed very far. This only applies to v7.00 tasks which have commenced processing - v7.03 (sse or sse2) tasks are safe to upgrade while in progress, and all unstarted tasks are safe.

BOINC v7 installations are not able to run any GPU applications in service mode, and the installer will now bypass GPU application pages on machines which cannot run GPU applications because of this restriction.

The installer is supposed to shut down the BOINC client whilst leaving the Manager running - noticable from the red 'disconnected' dot in the tray. After finishing the BOINC client should restart and the red dot vanish when the Manager reconnects. This may take a few minutes. On some systems however this fails to work. Please ensure BOINC has restarted.
Advanced users only: If you know you are going to edit app_info.xml, it may be easier to shutdown and restart BOINC manually, so you can get the changes into app_info.xml before the restart.

Some users reported that installer v0.41 failed to assemble a complete app_info.xml file from the aistub files supplied with each application. We have switched to using a 'grep' application (supplied) called from a slightly modified 'aimergeg.cmd' script to help avoid this problem. The original aimerge script is also present for people who are used to using it.

CPU MB apps - AKv8c r2549 (unchanged)

If you have any doubt at all about what instruction sets your CPU supports, download CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

We have now incorporated a 3rd party CPU feature detection tool into the installer. Unsupported applications will be greyed out, and the installer will pre-select recommended application versions for your CPU.

CPU AP v7 app - r2672/2692/2696/2703 depending on optimisation level.

A 32-bit AVX build is offered for the first time - at the SSE3 level, the installer will choose between AMD and Intel builds automatically (there wasn't space for an extra manual choice).

NVidia GPU (CUDA) app - x41zc

For details please see the separate ReadMe_x41zc.txt.

Rule of thumb selection guide:
Cuda 2.3: PreFermi - NOT to be used on Fermi/Kepler/Maxwell
Cuda 3.2: mixed systems
Cuda 4.2: Fermi
Cuda 5.0: Kepler/Maxwell
If you have run stock and have established APR you can also pick the fastest app from there.
For compatible cards see http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus
Should run on all NVidia CUDA cards with at least 512MiB video RAM. Actual free memory required is in the region of 200-235MB, depending on driver, OS flavour and CUDA variant. The code will scale up if more memory is available. Running on a 256MiB card is just possible, but you will have to free up as much VRAM as possible, e.g. by disabling Aero.
Used video RAM can be checked with GPU-Z downloadable from
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2244/techpowerup-gpu-z-v0-7-1/
Watch closely on GPU-Z and in BOINC manager if the application finds enough memory.
Symptoms of insufficient memory are
- in BOINC manager: tasks start up and run a few seconds then go to 'waiting
to run' and the next task tries to start
- on GPU-Z: the sensor for memory shows used VRAM ramping up and almost
immediately dropping again.
Depending on BOINC version your tasks will either error out with 'too many exits' or get stuck in an infinite loop.
If you don't have enough memory, set BOINC to NNT, abort tasks and uninstall the CUDA application by rerunning the installer with CUDA MB UNticked. If in doubt ask for help on NC: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_forum.php?id=10
To multithread on Fermi/Kepler cards, find all instances of <count>1</count> in app_info.xml and decrease to 0.5 or 0.3 to run two or three tasks in parallel.
Again, if you are uncertain of how to do this correctly, ask on the above mentioned forum. 'Your mileage may vary' - it depends on your specific system which count will give the highest throughput.
Full release notes and history in separate readme.

NVidia (OpenCL) AP v7 app - updated to r2887

Please see separate ReadMe_AstroPulse_OpenCL_NV.txt for details.
Reserving one CPU core per GPU card will improve performance.

Warning - the NVidia 340.52 driver (released 29 July 2014) causes invalid results on legacy compute capability 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 cards. This application will - deliberately - NOT run on such cards: it will alternate between displaying a warning message in BOINC Manager and apparently 'running', but will make no progress and eventually error out. If you have an old card (8000 series, 9000 series, or 2xx series), either exclude it from crunching AP, or downgrade to an older driver.

Alternatively, the 'hotfix' 341.44 driver (released 24 February 2015) can be used if available - not all operating system versions are supported.

ATI (OpenCL) MB app - updated to r2929

Please see separate ReadMe_MultiBeam_OpenCL_ATI.txt for details, especially on driver requirements.
Reserving one CPU core per GPU card will improve performance.
We offer the MB application in two different variants, depending on card:
plain - for most HD4xxx owners and those with HD5xxx, HD6xxx cards and
HD7xxx cards who suffer from driver incompatibilities.
HD5 - for most if not all owners of HD5xxx, HD6xxx and HD7xxx GPUs.

Please see separate ReadMe_AstroPulse_OpenCL_ATI.txt or ReadMe_AstroPulse_Brook.txt for details, especially on driver requirements.
Reserving one CPU core per GPU card will improve performance.

For cards without OpenCL support (from HD2xxxx on) use the 'hybrid' r2904 Astropulse application. NB this is a combined CPU/GPU application and will only use the GPU for some of the calculations, while doing the rest on a CPU core. Minimum driver version Catalyst 9.x.

The Hybrid AP application uses about 80% of a CPU core and does only about 20% of the calculations on the GPU. Parameters have been choosen to reflect this usage. However present BOINC can not reserve '0.8' of a CPU core and therefore reserves none. This means your CPUs will be overcommitted and runtimes and DCF (if applicable) will suffer. You do increase the overall output though.

HD2xxx cards requiring Brook (Hybrid) applications are once again supported by Lunatics for Astropulse v7.

Intel (OpenCL) applications for both MB and AP v7 (updated to r2929/r2742)

These are now offered by Lunatics. Please note the supported iGPU models, and observe the minimum OpenCL and driver versions, shown on the selection page. Intel CPUs offering plain "HD graphics" may be able to run these applications, with a suitable driver, but have not been exhaustively tested. Please verify that tasks run on these devices are validating consistently before allowing them to run unattended.

You MUST update your Intel driver if BOINC reports the OpenCL version as 1.1
The applications may appear to run without updating the driver, but the results will not be valid and you will have wasted your computing power.

Visit https://downloadcenter.intel.com/ if you require an updated graphics driver for your iGPU. Note that you will require a driver for a 3rd. or 4th. generation Intel 'core' CPU with the appropriately numbered HD or Iris graphics support.

Many people have reported problems getting Intel's automated update and installation tools to work, but their manual installation instructions (requiring the download of the '.zip' driver package) appear to work on systems which reject the automated tools. A copy of Intel's ReadMe file for driver installation will be placed in the Lunatics docs folder for reference if you select either of the iGPU applications.

This time the thanks go to Joe (Josef W. Segur) for the optimised CPU apps, to Raistmer (with additional input from Urs Echternacht) for OpenCL apps and to Jason (jason_gee) for CUDA apps.
Thanks guys. There would be no need for an optimised app installer if there weren't optimised apps in the first place!

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our active alpha testers
(in no particular order and apologies to anybody we've forgotten):
Claggy, arkayn and Mike.

Just for clarity: this is not a required update: you can continue using the previous v0.43 or v0.43a releases if they are working correctly on your hardware. But this release will tidy up some rough edges, like the warnings about unrecognised Astropulse v6 applications in the message log.

In general, the underlying technology (including drivers) moves from old-school methods toward new techniques. That can either work better (hopefully in most cases) or choke horribly if everything isn't 100% yet. (ymmv, lol)"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

I've just downloaded Drivers from 347.88 to 353.30 for Win XP Pro x64 for Exeter, and the same for Win 7 Pro x64 for Prometheus.

For AP WUs, is OpenCL 1.2 faster at crunching than 1.1??? What will the latest Drivers do in combination with Lunatics 0.43b on my two systems???

I had a few APs left from the recent rush, so I can supply some numbers from my GTX660. I'm not using customized command line parameters and <count> is 1. No screen lags were experienced.
rev2737 (0.43a release), 347.88 driver: runtime 38:06
rev2887 (0.43b release), 347.88 driver: runtime 39:33
rev2887 (0.43b release), 353.30 driver: runtime 41:09
GPU load is more or less the same, ~97%.

I've just downloaded Drivers from 347.88 to 353.30 for Win XP Pro x64 for Exeter, and the same for Win 7 Pro x64 for Prometheus.

For AP WUs, is OpenCL 1.2 faster at crunching than 1.1??? What will the latest Drivers do in combination with Lunatics 0.43b on my two systems???

I had a few APs left from the recent rush, so I can supply some numbers from my GTX660. I'm not using customized command line parameters and <count> is 1. No screen lags were experienced.
rev2737 (0.43a release), 347.88 driver: runtime 38:06
rev2887 (0.43b release), 347.88 driver: runtime 39:33
rev2887 (0.43b release), 353.30 driver: runtime 41:09
GPU load is more or less the same, ~97%.

I'm NOT using customized command line parameters, either, because I'm NOT familiar with how to make them work, or where to place them. I just install Lunatics, and let it crunch. I have told Lunatics to use CUDA50 for MB, and to allow APs to crunch on the NVIDIA cards.

Currently have Lunatics 0.43b running on both systems. NVIDIA Driver 337.88, also, on both systems.

I just thought that, now, with Lunatics 0.43b able to utilize the latest NVIDIA Drivers with OpenCL 1.2 that it might be worth upgrading the NVIDIA Drivers. Just needed to know which Driver to make use of. I was hoping that utilizing OpenCL 1.2 would be better than OpenCL 1.1 - I don't understand the difference between the two.

I notice that the run times you have posted actually show that OpenCL 1.2 on 353.30 is a couple minutes longer running than 347.88. I would have thought that run times would have gone down... :-/

The most complex game I run is StarCraft and BroodWar. (I don't even have StarCraft II.) So, I don't need the latest Drivers for anything but BOINC and SETI, Beta, and Einstein work.

I will upgrade to 353.30 on both systems; now that I'm able to, and see what happens.

Well, I've been fighting with Prometheus for three hours on Prometheus to Upgrade Drivers from 337.88. Unfortunately, complicating matters is that the Gigabyte Motherboard on Prometheus has an installed GeForce 9400 card that CANNOT be turned off. This caused the latest Drivers, (353.30, 353.06, 352.86, and 347.88), to fail to install - EVEN when running Display Driver Uninstaller in Safe Mode to remove prior drivers. Upon install of 353.30, after the reboot, the 750 TI SC was ONLY seen by GPU-Z as "Standard VGA Adapter". No matter how many times I ran DDU and tried the next highest Driver, the same thing happened. I just FINALLY got 337.88 reinstalled, and NOW the 750 TI SC is seen normally again by GPU-Z and BOINC!!! So, I'm stuck on Prometheus with 337.88 as my latest Driver.

Exeter; however, successfully installed 353.30 for the GTX-760. So, at least one system is completely updated. :-/

Thanks Richard for the work on Lunatics 0.43b. It's running fine on both systems; but, Exeter is making the best use of it combined with Driver 353.30. I can't wait for Exeter to get APs again to make use of OpenCL 1.2. :-)

It's unfortunate, due to hardware limitations on Prometheus, that I can't get the same performance. :-(

Thanks for the information on the Drivers' times to run information, Atlov. I will keep an eye on Exeter, (GTX-760), to see how it handles 353.30 and Lunatics 0.43b.

Thanks Richard for the work on Lunatics 0.43b. It's running fine on both systems; but, Exeter is making the best use of it combined with Driver 353.30. I can't wait for Exeter to get APs again to make use of OpenCL 1.2. :-)

It's unfortunate, due to hardware limitations on Prometheus, that I can't get the same performance. :-(

Thanks for the information on the Drivers' times to run information, Atlov. I will keep an eye on Exeter, (GTX-760), to see how it handles 353.30 and Lunatics 0.43b.

With that, goodnight everyone. :-)

TL

I'm afraid you won't see any change in performance just because of the driver. At least I didn't notice any afaicr.

Either go the long way and edit <count>1</count> from to <count>0.5</count> througout the app_info file. Or much easier create an app_config in each project directory with Notepad and set the GPU utilization there with statements like this:

That way you don't have to ever edit app_info again and possibly lose all your work. Much easier to edit or change app_config to make later changes and it will never lose your work. I suggest the latter.Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours